To Be Free Read Online Free PDF

finished,
frowning. Then I speak.
    "What's your
name, Nine?" I counter, and he pulls his head back a second,
blinking in confusion. There's that innocent look again, gone in an
instant. "Your real name."
    He laughs once breathlessly,
grinning without humour
    "Jaeger," he offers, letting go
of my throat and stepping back. "Sebastian Jaeger - looks like
we'll be partners for a bit."
    "Quinn Terry," I say, and with
that said he turns his back to me and pulls out towards the forest
surrounding the pristine white facility we just rocketed out of. I
smell like decay and this feels like a bad dream, but I turn my
back to the pile of corpses I rolled off and decide it's time to
Not Think.
    I follow.

 
May the Odds
be Ever in your Favour
    SEBASTIAN
     
    The odds aren't in my favour at
all.
    It smells like ozone as I lead
the way through the copse of trees - a thick, coppery smell that's
sort of orange-brown; I apologize in advance for that, by the way.
I tend to smell in colours - and there's a distant rumbling in my
ears that promises a hell of a storm. I can also hear the dogs as
they're let loose, no doubt after finding out that Eleven and I are
on the run.
    Then
there's him .
    The sound he makes as he
follows behind me reminds me of that saying about an elephant in a
China shop, and I resist the urge to thrash the man - after all,
the N.O.'s not very famous for letting its citizens hone their
skills in stealthier arts.
    It feels liberating to finally
have the dirt beneath my bare feet, though, the smell of the rich
substance almost overpowering the promise of rain and lightning in
the air. My lungs are protesting almost painfully at the exertion
that I haven't done in ages since I came here and my legs are
wobbly with the lack of exercise, but I push onwards. We've got a
long way to go before we're home free, and our options are rather
limited.
    First off, though, we need to
find a change of clothes and a place to wait out the storm where
the dogs won't sniff us out - luckily, though, the rain will wash
out our tracks and should give them a harder time to locate us, but
they'll be expecting us to go south since Mexico is closer than
Canada.
    So we'll have
to head north. It's going to be a hell of a long run, especially
with this stealthy asshole in tow, but if we get the right equipment and find
the right place to suit up, we should be okay...
    I stop in my tracks as my
vision blurs, the trees bending out of shape and trying to create
new ones out of a red haze in my vision. Quinn bumps into me when I
do so and I stumble to my knees, holding my head in my hands and
gritting my teeth, eyes snapped shut as I press my forehead against
my knees.
    Not
here, I plea, squinting up to the trees as
my companion kneels beside me, worried. They dance in the haze, and
a jolt of pain shoots up through my skull. Wait until later, for the love of God.
    I take deep breaths, ignoring
Eleven's questions and pushing myself back to my feet - albeit
shakily. After another moment the world rights itself again, and as
I stand there breathing carefully I realize how close I was to
collapsing.
    Oh.
    So I turn to look at the man
over my shoulder, and he flinches slightly as our eyes meet.
    "We'll go north," I inform him,
and I notice the protest about to leave his lips, so I beat him to
it. "They'll expect us to go to Mexico since it's closer, so we
need to take the long road home. I know of a small mountain lodge
not far from here where we can get some supplies, and there should
be a ranger's station not too far from there. The station isn't in
use this time of year and the store's closed for the season, so we
can stay there to wait out the storm."
    "What storm?" he questions,
frowning. When he frowns, he bites his lower lip slightly and his
right eyebrow falls a bit lower than his left. He watches me with
those hazel eyes that have changed colours at least three times
now.
    "If you'd stop knocking into
trees as if you wanted to make out with them, you'd